Case Study by ARM Hub
A Queensland family-run laundry has developed a robot prototype to automate one of the most labour-intensive tasks in commercial laundries – feeding clean towels into a folding machine before they are returned to the customer.
ARM Hub CEO Associate Professor Cori Stewart said the first phase of the towel flattening project undertaken by Hervey Bay-based Consolidated Linen Services (CLS) and the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Hub in Northgate, Brisbane, demonstrated it was possible to automate picking up linen from a container and flattening it.
“This is the key task for feeding a towel or other item into a folding machine,” said Dr Stewart.
“We believe this technique and its scalability is unique in the laundry space, and there is a significant commercial opportunity.”
Each week, CLS’s mostly seasonal staff feed by hand over 300 tonnes of clean towels, sheets, and pillowcases into automated folding machines in their laundry operations.
Tom Roberts, Operations Manager of CLS, which services an area of 1200kms across regional Queensland, said staff were handling around 700,000 linen items every week.
“The feeding process is incredibly labour intensive – the item must be picked up individually from a container, held by the corners to flatten it, and then fed into the folding machine – which takes around six seconds per item.”
The work is undertaken in an environment that can reach 50 degrees Celsius and around 95 percent humidity, requiring workers to take regular hydration and rest breaks.
With funding from the Queensland Government’s Essential Goods and Supply Chain Program, CLS began working with Professor Roberts and Mr David Hedger, Head of Project Services at ARM Hub, to develop an automated solution to the towel flattening problem.
Mr Hedger said the first phase of the project aimed to demonstrate it was possible to automate flattening linen.
“We focused on towels initially, as linen is more difficult to handle,” he said.
“We observed that when a towel was hung up by a corner, the opposite corner would usually be at the lowest point.”
Two robot arms set on a benchtop equipped with LiDAR and RGB cameras were trained to recognise true, as opposed to folded, corners on the towels.
Minister for Regional Development and Manufacturing Glenn Butcher said it was good to see businesses in regional Queensland partnering with the ARM Hub.
“It’s great to see Queensland manufacturers working with the ARM Hub to learn about robotic technologies and techniques and develop industry skills and expertise to apply to their own businesses,” Mr Butcher said.
“We know the importance of the manufacturing industry to the state’s continued growth, and stories like this demonstrate that Queensland is well on its way to becoming a globally recognised in advanced manufacturing technologies.”
For Neville and Tom Roberts, the world-first robotic innovation will help the commercial laundry sector become more resilient to economic impacts from tourism and labour availability.
“David and the team at ARM Hub have been just fantastic to deal with,” Tom Roberts said.
“They’ve always had an open mind when other places said what we were trying to do could not be achieved and their willingness to come to the table and help and to throw ideas around has been fantastic.”
Tom’s father, Neville, who along with wife Morena, founded CLS 30 years ago, said with the Olympics in 2032, the hospitality industry would undertake “massive growth” in the next 10 years.
“Thirty years ago, laundry was 30 tonnes per week and now is hundreds of tonnes per week, so there is only one way we can do it, and that is automation,” Neville Roberts said.
“Ultimately we want to improve efficiency and safety throughout the laundry, while improving our business profitability at the same time.”
Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development Steven Miles congratulated Consolidated Linen Services and ARM Hub on the innovation.
“The Queensland Government is extremely proud that funding from the $50 million Essential Goods and Supply Chain Program is assisting companies to commercialise innovative technologies,” Mr Miles said.
